User blog:Ugra Murda Kurma/Christian Shamanism
http://www.shamanism-101.com/Christian_meets_Shaman.html Christianity meets Shamanism I have found that Christians in particular who have been drawn to shamanism (which is not surprising, as there is a great deal of ancient shamanism still very alive in contemporary Christianity) seem to struggle with integrating it. Of course, given an upbringing where truth, divinity and goodness were all cited as one thing (and one thing only), some kind of difficulty in integrating the two seems only natural. With respect to Christianity, this difficulty is even more pronounced as Christianity has for hundreds of years pursued a program of misinformation about native spiritualities such as shamanism. Called 'evil' or 'ungodly', or simply derided as 'barbaric' of 'childish', those spiritualities that were other than Christian met a bloody fate as Christian powers took over native European lands. In order to honor some of my student's request for confidentiality, and who seem to be primarily of a strongly Christian upbringing or who currently live in a deeply Christian community, I have put together an 'amalgam' question drawn from similar questions from several students, and followed with my response to one of them. Students: “Is it going against the Lord if I study this? I have power animals and I have connection with Spirit but I get worried for talking with them. Growing up in the church, I love God and don't want to do anything that He doesn't want. I want to do what's right, but I feel I'm doing wrong and don't want to be punished. Steve: Such thoughts and feelings are actually quite normal! First of all, you should follow your deepest instincts here. This is about you making your own decisions. I would be the last one to tell you to jettison one ‘god’ in lieu of another, or more correctly in this case, rally for one spirit helper over another! I do appreciate your question, as it strikes to the center of a huge issue in the contemporary reemergence of shamanism. One of the more frequent first ‘alarm bells’ that go off in practitioner’s minds has to do with the degree to which they are challenging the automatic, normalized consensus acceptance of reality. Just to put you at ease, nearly everyone who I have known who had a more intense dose of orthodox religion such as Christianity in their background goes through some kind of thought and emotional gymnastics over this business of a jealous god, that is, some omnipotent father figure that is going to get angry at us for considering anything to be as important as Itself. I don’t happen to worry about punishment. I have never seen it, aside from the self-punishment that such guilt-ridden human beings do to themselves. But again, each of us must make up our own minds about such things. In terms of shamanic practice and understanding, those beings that many people throughout history have called this or that god, are most likely one or another of the helping spirits. They always show in the way that is most suited to the person seeking them. Hence, if you were Islamic, it would make sense that Allah would show. If Christian, it might be God, or Christ, or Mary or something. OK, some might consider these to be ‘super-spirits’, somehow more powerful than the rest. Who knows, I certainly don’t. As I keep reminding us, it is the nature of the shaman to challenge the automatic consensus or socially accepted definition of ordinary reality. Actually, the shaman must do this in order to ‘break through’ social opinion or other people’s conceptions of reality to commune with these spirits. This is the case even in a shamanic society where helping spirits are not known by the terms such as ‘god’, but by the Oak Spirit, or Wind, Bear and Raven. When you journey, you could eventually, very possibly, run into a helping spirit who is willing to be known as ‘God’, - or Christ or Allah depending on one’s experience. If this is a compassionate spirit, however, in terms of shamanic understanding, it is impossible that it would be jealous, or much less have anything to do with harming you, if this is what is meant by punishment. Remember, the spirits can present themselves to us in the manner with which they believe we can best hear and understand them. I realize that given the tremendous amount of indoctrination and social inculcation by religions such as Catholicism that such ideas are a little upsetting. If I had said this in the wrong place and time in European history, I could easily be burned alive or submitted to drowning for having said, or even thought such a thing. There is a historic and unfortunate connection between this latent suspicion of shamanism in the United States and at various other places throughout the world, and Christianity. Christianity began as a cult of redemption (and actually, still is), and spread across Europe with a conscious program of inciting fear and proceeding to eradicate Europe's native spiritualities. I’m answering this somewhat at length because the subject is crucial, even today. Just last night I ran across a fairly recent horrifying situation in Africa where 11 people from one village, most of them women, were dragged away in the middle of the night and burned alive, one by one, for suspicion of doing shamanic work. It’s such a very important question though, and I am really glad you raised it. You will develop a clearer and clearer sense of where you ‘sit’ with this, and probably do as we all do, which is to begin to challenge things as you start working through your shamanic studies. That is the nature of the journey; more often than not it challenges us to our core. In the present, common United States world view, for instance, there is a terrific and long-inculcated reaction of suspicion to the 'reality' of anything that appears distant from the accepted ‘out there’ reality, which includes such usual things as trees, mountains, cars, hotels and skateboards, all of which exist in what shamanic practice refers to as ‘ordinary reality'. However, this supposed distinction, this attempt at separation between the 'out there' in supposed 'reality', and the 'in here' of what happens in the mind, is lunacy, yet a matter that is obviously missed by the majority living in the States today, and perhaps, around the world. This separation between 'mental' and 'physical' is so taken for granted, yet everything, every last iota of ‘thinghood’ must necessarily be processed and ‘seen’ through the virtual experience of the mind. Dreams are processed by the mind, as are mountains and skateboards. Ultimately, there is no difference between the two when it comes to the simple fact that the mind must create a virtual representation of what it is supposedly experiencing So, here's another very good question in answer to yours: "OK, if spirits such as God or Mary or Buddha are in my mind, am I making them up?" The answer might just as well be turned back on the question: and we discover that we are making itall up! Everything in human consciousness is necessarily an inner creation, relying on information it puts together from the body's sensory apparatus. The mind is a complete and necessary screen upon which images that are representations of the world are developed. Even better, forget this supposed distinction between mind and matter, and to forgo any division between mental and physical, and return to that wholeness, that interconnectedness and just let that speak for itself. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_medicine Traditional medicine (also known as indigenous or folk medicine) comprises knowledge systems that developed over generations within various societies before the era of modern medicine. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines traditional medicine as "the sum total of the knowledge, skills, and practices based on the theories, beliefs, and experiences indigenous to different cultures, whether explicable or not, used in the maintenance of health as well as in the prevention, diagnosis, improvement or treatment of physical and mental illness."[1] In some Asian and African countries, up to 80% of the population relies on traditional medicine for their primary health care needs. When adopted outside of its traditional culture, traditional medicine is often called alternative medicine.[1] Practices known as traditional medicines include Ayurveda, Siddha medicine, Unani, ancient Iranian medicine, Irani, Islamic medicine, traditional Chinese medicine, traditional Korean medicine, acupuncture, Muti, Ifá, and traditional African medicine. Core disciplines which study traditional medicine include herbalism, ethnomedicine, ethnobotany, andmedical anthropology. The WHO notes however that "inappropriate use of traditional medicines or practices can have negative or dangerous effects" and that "further research is needed to ascertain the efficacy and safety" of several of the practices and medicinal plants used by traditional medicine systems.[1]The line between alternative medicine and quackery is a contentious subject. Traditional medicine may include formalized aspects of folk medicine, that is to say longstanding remedies passed on and practised by lay people. Folk medicine consists of the healing practices and ideas of body physiology and healthpreservation known to some in a culture, transmitted informally as general knowledge, and practiced or applied by anyone in the culture having prior experience.[2] Folk medicine may also be referred to as traditional medicine, alternative medicine,indigenous medicine, or natural medicine. These terms are often considered interchangeable, even though some authors may prefer one or the other because of certain overtones they may be willing to highlight. In fact, out of these terms perhaps only indigenous medicine and traditional medicine have the same meaning folk medicine, while the others should be understood rather in a modern or modernized context.[3] Similarly, a home remedy is a treatment to cure a disease or ailment that employs certain spices, vegetables, or other common items. Home remedies may or may not have medicinal properties that treat or cure the disease or ailment in question, as they are typically passed along by laypersons (which has been facilitated in recent years by the Internet). http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_healer A folk healer is an unlicensed person who practices the art of healing using traditional practices, herbal remedies and even the power of suggestion. A folk healer may be a highly trained person who pursues his specialties, learning by study, observation and imitation. In some cultures a healer might be considered to be a person who has inherited the "gift" of healing from his or her parent. The ability to set bones or the power to stop bleeding may be thought of as hereditary powers. White witchEdit White witch and good witch are qualifying terms in English used to distinguish practitioners of folk magic for benevolent purposes (i.e. white magic) from practitioners of malevolent witchcraft or black magic.[1] Related terms are "cunning-folk", "witch doctor", and the French devins-guérisseurs, "seer-healers". During the witch trials of Early Modern Europe, many practitioners of folk magic that did not see themselves as witches, but as healers or seers, were convicted of witchcraft (Éva Pócs' "sorcerer witches"): many English "witches" convicted of consorting with demons seem to have been cunning folk whose fairy familiars had been demonised,[2][3] and over half the accused witches in Hungary seem to have been healers.[4] Some of the healers and diviners historically accused of witchcraft have considered themselves mediators between the mundane and spiritual worlds, roughly equivalent to shamans.[5] Such people described their contacts with fairies, spirits, or the dead, often involving out-of-body experiences and travelling through the realms of an "other-world".[6] Beliefs of this nature are implied in the folklore of much of Europe, and were explicitly described by accused witches in central and southern Europe. Repeated themes include participation in processions of the dead or large feasts, often presided over by a female divinity who teaches magic and gives prophecies; and participation in battles against evil spirits, "vampires", or "witches" to win fertility and prosperity for the community.[6] Popular culture *Sir Walter Scott spoke of a "white witch" in his novel Kenilworth (1821) *The "white witch" Glinda is the Good Witch in L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and the film based on it. *C.S. Lewis inverted the image of "white" witchcraft as "good" in his children's book series The Chronicles of Narnia, naming one of his primary villains The White Witch. Alternative medicine is any practice that is put forward as having the healing effects of medicine, but is not founded on evidence gathered using the scientific method.[1][2] It consists of a wide range ofhealth care practices, products and therapies.[3] Examples include new and traditional medicinepractices such as homeopathy, naturopathy, chiropractic, energy medicine, various forms ofacupuncture, traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurvedic medicine, and Christian faith healing. The treatments are those that are not part of the conventional, science-based healthcare system,[4][5][6][7]and are not backed by scientific evidence. Complementary medicine is alternative medicine used together with conventional medical treatment in a belief, not proven by using scientific methods, that it "complements" the treatment.[n 1][1][9][10]CAM is the abbreviation for complementary and alternative medicine.[11][12] Integrative medicine (or integrative health) is the combination of the practices and methods of alternative medicine with conventional medicine.[13] Alternative medical diagnoses and treatments are usually not included in the degree courses ofmedical schools, or used in conventional medicine, where treatments are based on what is proven using the scientific method. Alternative therapies lack such scientific validation, and their effectiveness is either unproved or disproved.[14][15][16] Alternative medicine is usually based onreligion, tradition, superstition, belief in supernatural energies, pseudoscience, errors in reasoning, propaganda, or fraud.[14][17][18][19] Regulation and licensing of alternative medicine and health care providers varies from country to country, and state to state. The scientific community has criticized alternative medicine as being based on misleading statements, quackery, pseudoscience, antiscience, fraud, or poor scientific methodology. Promoting alternative medicine has been called dangerous and unethical.[20] Testing alternative medicine has been called a waste of scarce medical research resources.[21] Critics have said "there is really no such thing as alternative medicine, just medicine that works and medicine that doesn't",[22] and "Can there be any reasonable 'alternative' medicine based on evidence? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_medicine http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbal_medicine Herbalism ("herbology" or "herbal medicine") is use of plants for medicinal purposes, and the study of such use. Plants have been the basis for medical treatments through much of human history, and such traditional medicine is still widely practiced today. Modern medicine recognizes herbalism as a form of alternative medicine, as the practice of herbalism is not strictly based on evidence gathered using the scientific method. Modern medicine, does, however, make use of many plant-derived compounds as the basis for evidence-tested pharmaceutical drugs, and phytotherapy works to apply modern standards of effectiveness testing to herbs and medicines that are derived from natural sources. The scope of herbal medicine is sometimes extended to include fungal and bee products, as well as minerals, shells and certain animal parts. Category:Blog posts